life

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Island Blog – The Leapist

As life twiddles on, all contours and corners, some parts expected, many not, the old roads rising up like snakes, or a beckoning, clear and flowered, I, and my curious Alice mind, notice it all. Actually, this Alice noticing thing can be a pain in the ass, a lot of the time, but, and but again, I have the Alice mind and it is my mind and I am always curious. I stop, a lot, see a little ‘weed’, see a butterfly on a bloom, and I question. I see huge invasive flattening in the mud where careless cars have quashed a whole story, a whole tiny life story, now just tyre marks and unfertile ridges. However I bemoan nothing beyond an initial gasp at the uneducated. It is as it is, and, beyond the well-known fact that Nature will survive and revive way after we eejits are dust, I don’t want to carry judgement. It’s like wearing lead boots. I do wish, nonetheless, that more of us understood the precious gift of our lives, our responsibilities, even our place in this time, this Now. I wish, too, that everyone would be curious, ask questions, be open to learning. But, it isn’t like that now. I know, I know. There is an expectation that beyonds me. We want, I want, this, no, not that this, this this, and now. I know not the language to engage in that conversation, were it one beyond observation, nor would I.

I didn’t have work today, although I did delight in collecting and delivering the bread, the croissants, and the pain au chocolat to the Best Cafe Ever. I wound my merry way along the complete wiggle and turn, cornering, rising in speed, slowing because the bracken is frickin and holds the view in completous. (my latin coming out there) and I did meet a few eejits who cannot reverse, but we worked it between us. Driving home in the sunshine, the heat and still smelling the glory of newly baked sourdough and the fresh pastries, I had a think. I am listening to a beautiful audio book. I should probably name it. Harry Potter and the History of Magic. It’s all about the making of the books, including in detail all the research Rowling immersed herself in. It is way more than my initial assessment of her, to my shame. As revelations arose going back centuries, to beasts, beliefs, to christian evolutive paths, her research brought together magic and belief, unbelief and choice. It thinks me, a lot.

Church today, a few of us. These days folk come because they want to, not because they ought, or should, or are told to. The theme was about stepping up to genuinely bring good. I used to wonder. about the consistence of that ‘good’. You can be one person in your good giving and then you. come back home as mum or dad in very bad moods, and ‘what changed?’ So confusing. I get it. However, I am a Leapist. I can understand magic and faith. I disagree with a lot on both sides, but I am open, curious and always learning. What I do learn is about the stops. No, this, No, that, on both sides. Perception on both can be sqewed, cultures are BIG on tidelines, on either or. In between there is the chance to leap through. I’m there.

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Island Blog – Invectus

Last night, Buck Moon, btw, full and shouting, although I missed the earlier rise into sky disco mode, because I was in bed by nine, still light, still opportunity out there, but my opportunity opening had closed. I was happily Beach Cafe tired and there was a good book awaiting me along with my nightie (sorry for the detail) and a big mug of knockout drops, aka, Chamomile, 2, Sleep tea, one. Works a treat. I can actually leave the night unattended, she gets on with herself, darkling corridors and alleyways and rocks on the shore, inviting the night creatures out like a disco queen.

However, and this was a big However for me, last night when the night disco raised hell for neighbours and when the Buck Moon was rubbing the velvet off his antlers, asleep was I, calm and well-read, chamomile drugged, my heart the rhythm, a gentle beat. Actually, that’s a lie. I am hellfire in my chest, the beat of acid house, or whatever that hysterical thrumming beat is called. Anyway……is there another word for a crossroads in direction? Happy to receive ideas. Let me begin.

I think I fell asleep around 10. I flipped off an extra pillow, felt the fresh breeze pushing in the wide window, and gloried in it. T’is done, I said, I did, out loud. Sleep now. And we did, the breeze and I, until the carbon monoxide monitor rose into a soprano that would split any ears, all ears. It began as a chirrup, which I ignored. I’ve done well on this island ignoring alarms, any sort. Mostly, they are nonsense. However, this scream would not be ignored, rising into a definite panic. I came downstairs, checked the house and found a citronella candle still burning, encased, yes, but burning nonetheless. I had forgot.

I pulled the CO2 thing off the wall, after extinguishing the candle, and pushed every damn button. It screamed on. I sat with it for moments, doing the pushing thing, but that ear-splitting scream continued and I mean continued, non frickin stop. I made tea, sat, shook my head a lot. I knew I needed sleep, there was no gas leak, no nothing, all windows open in this heat , no threat. I filled a bucket with water and dropped the monitor in it. I had already unscrewed the back from the front, always, in my opinion, the best advice to give to anyone, no matter the problem, but still it shrieked, even underwater. I went back to bed and applied ear plugs, slept a bit, but when I woke about 3 am, I could still hear it, burbling away drowned, not drowned. Apologising to my, now, exhausted fluffy dressing gown, I literally caterpulted downstairs. It is 04.30. I have work tomorrow, no, today. There is no danger here. Still shrieking in the drowning bucket. Ach……Ok, you, I thank you for being so wonderful, I think. I put it in the fridge and still it beeped. I got some sleep, and loved my day in the Best Cafe Ever. However, when I did come down at 04.30, I knew there was a reason for all this nonsense. There, like a new planet, the full Buck Moon. Held, in sky stasis, right in my face. I didn’t need lights.

Thinks me. Someone who irritates, something that irritates. What can we learn about another and, what’s more, was there a random something that led us here, this now, one we might not have chosen, but one which may give us the insight we need?

I am happy to say. that, with help, my feisty and wonderful CO2 monitor is no more. I will buy another one because I know, and this may be a big shift, that when something alerts me, no matter it electronic, I am alert. I honestly don’t believe that things and people are apart from each other. After all, and think on this, we constructed the things. We are connected, as we are with the tides and the moonflows, even if we live in concrete and streetal limitations and confines.

If only we believed,

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Island Blog – Shenanigans

It was super boiling in the Washeroo today, all that steaming water puffing steam at me as I loaded and emptied the dishwasher, one I have never met. The wash is fiery hot and quick and very effective, plates and cups too hot to touch for at least three rounds of ‘He’s a jolly good fellow’. I am so happy that, back in the 80’s, my adventurous and spontaneous culinary skills were ‘allowed’ to develop without any eye from Health and Safety, bringing in some besuited interference with a clipboard of rules, immovable rules, no matter that we live on an island with a dispirited ferry and, thus, limited deliveries of fresh anything much.

We, up here, in the thankful coolish climes, with a wind that, once November comes, can wheech a skinny old woman off her feet, we are happy it’s gentle now, warm and soft, and more than happy we are not in Englandshire nor in any other Hotshire. I thought I was hot in the Washeroo, but I can imagine, actually I cannot, the temperature in a restaurant in a confined city place, with no access to a seawind, no chance of a blast of cool.

However, this is not the thing I wanted to say. I gave a lift home to a young beautiful woman, shy, smiling, respnsive, smart, definitely in the room. I watch her head turn, saw her respond to a customer demand, watched her serve, clear tables, respond to a sudden rush. I watch from the Washeroo, where I am definitely hiding, because there is a lorry load of plates, cups, glasses, bowls, and more coming in on trays so fast I can barely keep up. But even focused inward, the dishwasher, the drying, the response to askers. More Teapots, now, This Knife, More quiche plates, that sort of dynamic. I do this dynamic all through the middle of the day which is when the everyone of everything arrives with a list. Two soups, one with bread, one with cheese scone, yes, extra cheese and Mull seaweed chutney, yes. Four quiches, no, wait, two are vegan, so no this nor that. The kids want juice, ice, no ice, baby chinos, is the banana loaf nut free, is the lemon polenta ok for vegetarians, are the blueberries safely sourced for those muffins, can I have this tea, that tea, this coffee, that coffee with oat milk, soy milk, no milk, extra water, warm, not iced?

We do it so well in the Best Cafe Ever. We duck and dive, juke and swivel, guided by the bosses. Actually I wonder if they like that title. Just wondering. We are well led. When something looks like a lack (always wanted to write that) it’s a turning, an opportunity and what I have found in that wee serving space, with goodness knows how many conversations and solutions burgeoning like new blooms every minute, we are a flipping marvellous team. The leaders, the we of us, the whole impact on this summer, this place, this dynamic. I’m so glad I’m here. The fun we. have, the shenanigans. Everyone is jealous. Work is boring after all, a thing to get through.

Not here.

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Island Blog – The Mary Thing

I’m home and back into a precious silence, just the birds, the gulls screeching like a mother who is way past tolerance, urgent, a call that cuts like glass. I’m watching the shift-light, the white skinny, almost saying something. Blue sits fat and patchy, here and there, confident in its canopy control. I am always here, but playing hide and seek and damn good at it. I’ve been hours away this day, caught and captured into a gathering. That’s what we call it here. A gathering can occur on a hillside, within the walls of a completely unprepared cottage in the middle of nowhere, a sudden thing. But, this one was ready for itself. We all knew it was coming, the date set.

I was unsure about what to wear as all of my clothing fits a rainbow and this was a sad gathering, no matter the celebration of life thing. A very long life lived, a load of children, a big team of grandkids and a football stadium of great grandlings. 97 or so years of twinkling and working like not many women would these days. I knew her, a bit, but in talking with one of her grandsons (so handsome, as they all are) about body language and the words we say without saying a single word, I felt I suddenly knew her better. She was a generation above me, ahead of me, but she was so approachable, so welcoming, so naughty, perhaps not all by herself, but there was that sparkle in her eyes that told me she was up for anything. A very gracious lady, and I mean Lady.

We laid her to rest this day in the old graveyard, her beloveds, spanning generations, lowering her into the ground beside the love of her life, gone some years before, above the bay, with cloud dip, slight rain (very polite and thank you) and a lot of old, young, very young, all there for her. She leaves with them, her inspiration, her encouragement and acceptance and a lot of tears and laughter. And Billy, who brought her home was as he has always been, respectful, working with whatever a family chooses, so compassionate, so professional.

What a legacy Mary. You leave that with them, with me, with all of us who remember you now, and who will talk about you for frickin ages.

Thank you.

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Island Blog – Tergiversator and Future Hope

This watching of grandlings growing into themselves thinks me. Although I only see them in explosive bursts, in holiday mode and intent, so intent on buzzing about on my quad, sometimes well overloaded, I can see they are moving into a new state. To me it looks like a very big space, full of questions like bluebottles around their heads. What they once believed unequivocally, they now challenge such as rulings within the home, opinions proffered which cause them to stop, confused, unsure. ‘I don’t agree with this’ can be flattened by one slammed fist of an authoritarian, carelessly dismissed and mocked. I remember that place. We are changelings in these awkward and spotty years, knowing what we don’t want but without the language to communicate. We have, in short, yet to learn the rules of the game ahead. We feel anger, frustration, a lack of recognition, but then even we don’t recognise the self we are fast becoming.

Change is a wonderful thing, in its perfect state, which doesn’t exist by the way because change is always upsetting for others. Think on it. If a dot in a perfect line of dots decides to drop a millimetre down or up, the line, once confident and assured now faces a void, a loss. Chaos ensues. What we once were…. that damn dot has ruined, ruined! This line has stood strong for weeks, months, years, generations, and now look. No, don’t look. There’s a hole in the straight line, in our understanding, in our confidence, in our family, in our workplace, on our street, and we are wringing our hands, lost, confused, angry. And why are we angry? Because we now, thanks to this Dot Dash, have no idea who we are anymore. That’s why.

In the Oxford Dictionary, there are many words for change, but what I have noticed is that there are many more swerves to the negative, and it wonders me. A definition begins with all that is good about change, slipping almost immediately into the gutter, into the dark, the menacing. This tells me quite a lot about how culture has, and still does, control wordage , language. Tergiversator, a word I might use now as light and lively once meant fickle, scheming, menacing even, and there are many more such definitions. This is because words shift and change shape and meaning, all the time and with every generation, with the infusion of new cultures, new beliefs, new aspirations towards a freedom, an escape from the structure of what once was so solid.

As a new young person grows beyond the langauge learned in childhood, there must always be some level of confrontation. The pillars and posts of the buildings that once stood strong (and controlling) will crumble because they must. New ideas burst in, new thoughts, new people. We need these new people, careless though they may be, crazy, certain of themselves, blundering and breaking rules, just as, once, the world needed us for exactly the same reason. Future hope.

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Island Blog – Family, time and A.I.

They barrelled in, the girls, all grown up now, or so they think. I remember barrelling in with just that belief, even though I was always dodging the parental thumb. They’re like butterflies, the really colourful ones, dipping and diving, fluttering, spinning bright sparkles around the room, any room, so vulnerable. I smile a big welcome, ask questions because these girls now think they are adults, autonomous, certain. They have opinions, strong ones, a surety that I have definitely lost over time. For now, they know the world. It’s round, and contained in space within a gravitational pull, but they’re not, with their piecings and tattoos and that certainty that the world is just waiting for them to cause a wow. A really big Wow. One is heading into performing arts, another to the science of human geography, another to animal whispering (it’s not called that, but she is definitely a student thereof, already). And there are more plans for futures. Forgive my forgetting. All these teens are alight like fireworks, grasping life, opportunities, fighting for space within the inevitable confines of peer judgement and parental disappointment. What the parents wanted and hoped for, even planned for, was not what this teen had even imagined. No, Dad. No, Mum. Teens can say that these days.

I am, at first, momentarily surprised at how short I am. They were babies, toddlers, kindergarten deposits, when…….a few months ago, weren’t they? Now they are tall, strong girls, all made up perfectly, in lycra, toned and svelte, excited, fit, adventurous, wild, aware. I don’t mind being short btw. It works, for a granny. They look after me, help me unscrew a wine bottle or a jar of pesto, open the door for me. I am loved and I can feel it. Actually, the surprise thing continues. My quad shoots by loaded with girls, all squealing. I know they have walked into the wild Atlantic from Calgary beach, swung on tree limbs, investigated deer tracks, not a moment of boredom. And they are doing all this right here. Although I may only see them in quad passing, I know they are here, and it thinks me about moments, which is really all we have. Although I am alone on the island, I am not alone at all. Family may not live here anymore, but they come back and those explosions of the familiar are welcome, so welcome. Even when they are here, they have their own agenda, their own plans, of course they do. Even their parents, my kids, move to a different beat from the one of their childhood.

I get this glimpse and then they are gone again, but I have watched every given moment, listened to hopes, dreams, plans. I have watched faces alight with hope and faith. II have given over my kitchen for cake-baking, have watched my quad roar by way too fast, loaded up with girls. And I think this……

Go girls. Make a difference. Be canny, aware, safe and, oh, another thing….Artificial Intelligence can never be human.

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Island Blog – Freedom and the Pefficor

So what is freedom? A massive question and with a gazillion answers, for sure. For some it means a facilitated or courageous move away from confinement. For others it might mean, well, pretty much the same thing. I get that it isn’t always possible. I also get that it is possible, but would take huge courage and a faith that, eventually, a life would improve. It has to. Confinement is always wrong. Always. However, a person may have been complicit in the confining thing and that bit is often the one reason to stay. I agreed to this. I let this happen. I am to blame. We are such suckers for personal blame, as if it was born with us like a tricky twin.

Here’s a thing, one which might sound bajonkers. Not only might we be the one confined, physically or mentally, but we are also the pefficor, the more senior ‘officer’ in the ranks, of which we are but one. This nonsense is crazy but it is real. Inside our minds there are the critical voices, or just one, from our past, our childhood, and there is the pefficor, quite a gentle name for such an ungentle, who didn’t see us, not really, hear us, not at all, ask about us, our feelings, our life, well, maybe once or maybe twice. We can’t understand the power of that voice, nor why it keeps triggering us into a big response in the life we now live. I know what is missing. A good self-esteem, a strong sense of self within any dynamic, any workspace, any group of friends/ strangers.

The next bit is always inner work. In this world, so lost in the machinations of gain and power, even though all of us seek simple, gentle, loving, kind, we keep listening to the pefficor in our heads. Life is all about success. No, it isn’t. Life is all about listening, learning, uplifting, observing, slowing, watching, accepting. Striving for money is a death wish. We know this. We’ve seen so very many fall into that black, snake-infested pit. The wrong goal.

Whom do we admire? And I omit with a big omit anyone in fame because that place just doesn’t exist beyond a cloudal fluff. However, with many teens in my grandlings, I can see the power of the pefficor in their lives, the subsuming of self into the morass. I can see how tough parenting is nowadays and I am glad my kids, now parents, had the freedom of the wild.

I have no idea why all this came to me as I sat down to write, but it did. All any of us ever want is the freedom to live, to love, to move, to lift, to change, to settle, to choose, to speak, to listen, to be heard. Not a lot to ask.

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Island Blog – A Stopping

The day begins. I rise, dress, and head for a what I believe will be an ordinary day. I’m thinking about myself, the what-I-will do, my plans, my things, me, me, me. We all do it, and it takes something outside of ourselves to shock, to shake us into the outside of our fixation on self. It’s a very big world out there, a load of people, situations, circumstances, troubles we will never experience. We forget in the fuss about clothing dropped on the floor, the loo seat left up, the greasy fingerprints on furniture, the abandoned sweet wrappers, pizza boxes not emptied, not cleared, and I could go on for a whole year on that stuff. I was there, I remember it all.

And then something happens, news comes in. Suddenly we are twisted and twizzled into a spin, one that sends our eyes open wide at first, and then into a crazy spiral. As suddenly, the whole shit about clothes on floors, careless loo seat attention and abandoned wrappers become a nothing. Just like that. Because this news is so big as to automatically and perspectively diminish the things which, moments before, sent us into a snort of fury as if they were our only vision of our lives, we stop. What we were doing, or about to do, birls in our minds, and away into the mist, the rain. We cannot see them anymore.

Death is part of life, obviously. We all have to do both. It’s ok, sort of, for an old and beloved to leave the world, even though he or she leaves a big and wide grieving family. The dying in this case of a mum of many, grandmother of gazillions, was expected, and she was well into her 90’s. Still, the loss…….

This is going to sound weird, but I like to be reminded out of my own small agenda. I don’t like the news, don’t like the fallout of a big family home, one I remember, all sparkle and can-do, all fixed and sure, all young out there, naughty, finding their way, moving out, moving on, loving and loyal.

RIP Mary. I will remember your smile and those twinkles in your eyes, always.

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Island Blog – Can you see me, hear me?

I repot the Money Tree. I’ve had it for decades and in the same pot, the escaping roots lifting it all wonkychops. I cannot think how long that feisty wee bonsai darling has allowed the wonky. It thinks me, about wonky, I mean. I had heard it ask for a repot, for a long time, but, as happens to us all, I was just too busy with the what now of pretty much everything so that its asking floated into the air until I couldn’t hear it above the insistent demands of each day. Until I did, hear it ask again. It now stands in a slightly bigger pot, roots tended and loosened, wonky no more.

I think about re-potting, about asking and about not being heard. Today I had no work and I was very tired, all bog-eyes and rising from a very restless sleep, if sleep came at all. The dynamic in work is a great place to learn, about others, about the space, about the levels, about wonky. My mind scoots back to the times I have listened to the angst in a workplace, the strife of it all spilling from another’s lips, the obvious wonky. Having lived this long, I know that it is natural to look for a solution outside of oneself; the wrong dynamic, the wrong allocation of duties, the member of staff who is so in your face that you just can’t find a way to work with them. The ones who avoid duties leaving them to you. The getting away with it just because they are who they are, damn good at their job but not able to work with emotional intelligence within a team. I’ve heard it all. It’s wonky.

I have also learned that love, compassion, a listening ear and recognition of another is key to solution. It takes humility, yes. It asks for a choice to make something work, together. There are many people, all awkward with their things, who cannot communicate as perhaps I or you can. They just cannot. Nonetheless they are asking to be seen, heard, loved, kept safe, and, if that is determinedly acknowledged, the wonky can find a level. Not their wonky, but the one of the whole. Imbalance is a sea thing. God, don’t I know it, out there where each wave blocked out the whole sky. I know it in a bumpy marriage, a tricky parentage, an uncomfortable time with my own children. There is wonky everywhere. But here’s the thing. It isn’t about being perfect, or, maybe it is, because not one of us can aspire to that, but being the one who allows, who befriends, supports, nourishes, even if another is a complete alien in our perception, that one can actively prevent a serious wonk, one which just might tip the whole thing over into disaster. If we all stopped thinking so much about ourselves and our own wants and needs ALL of the time, we might hear the little voice asking.

Can you see me, hear me?

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Island Blog – Skinny Dip and Washeroo

Work in the best beach cafe ever was dynamic, busy and fun today. I notice the invitation from faces, the longing for recognition and connection. I remember noticing the same whilst welcoming Colonel and Mrs Tiddleypom after their very bumpy traverse along the Tapselteerie drive. That look. It is universal, on any, no, every face. Seen it in Africa, in Glasgow, in the Edinburgh queue for opera, in airport security, in the aloneness of a bus shelter, in the face of a beggar, the face of a starlet, the face of a terribly important high-flying-big earning business man. (There never were women in those so-called elevated roles in my back-in-the-day.) There is a longing for connection, skinny as hec, yes, but the eyes win, every time, no matter the flicking away, nor the make-up. I can dip into that, you who are right in front of me, as I am in front of you.

There’s a lot of dipping around in the wee space where deliciousness is delivered. We dance well, the skinny we of the serving team. We pull back to allow a big tray of quiches, soups, cakes, coffees, teas heading for a big table and zip sideways, which makes sense. Another, incoming tray of clearings, equally requiring the zip thing, and we pull back or lead, doing it for hours. My role, one it seems I have taken over (which might not be right) is the Washeroo. Is this my mother thing, the historical one who believes she is the only one who can wash up properly? Hmmmm

In the Washeroo, I am listening, peeking out to see if there’s a human on the other side of the counter who wants, yes, to order soup, quiche, cake, but more, someone who, regardless of their worldly elevation or wish for it, or feelings of loss, despair, failure, whatever, just wants a “hallo, what can I get you? Yes of course your dog is welcome, please sit anywhere. And they do. I have noticed that folk stay long beyond their food, talking, laughing, feeling happy, welcome. A lot.

The pecan brownies are delicious, the quiche, oh yes, it comes with a fresh salad, the chocolate cake, I’m sorry it’s gone, but there are flapjacks, cinnamon buns, rhubarb crumble slice, lemon polenta, blueberry muffins, and I have to tell you, this baker knows about air in her baking because EVERYTHING is light.

So, the skinny dip in and out of our work to serve the lovely people who come, just them as themselves, and the work within this skinny dip team, is such a privilege. I honestly don’t know that I have ever been in this dynamic before. I haven’t. We are making a new thing.